But the highly anticipated launch of the Lumia 900 LTE on AT&T, Inc. (T) had some major hiccups.

First, Nokia and Microsoft's "Beta Phone" campaign received mixed reviews. And by aggressively mocking pass mess-ups from the likes of Apple, Inc. (AAPL), Nokia put a great deal of pressure on itself to have an error free launch.

The Nokia Lumia 900. [Image Source: Nokia]

Launching on Easter Sunday was another poor decision. Customers were left with no open AT&T stores to assist them with questions, and were only able to get the product from online purchases.

II. A Crippling Bug

But the biggest issue came when a number of users began to report Wi-Fi connectivity issues.

Many users were left with no conectivity (Note: pictured connectivity loss was triggered by an AT&T black-spot, not the glitch; highlighted add for emphasis).
[Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech LLC]

Ed. Note: As a Lumia 900 owner, I used Wi-Fi over the weekend without issue. My phone had another minor problem -- it did not come with activation instructions. Rather than dig around online, I opted to activate it on Monday.

The reports began on Nokia's support forums and Windows Phone related forums. On the wpcentral forums, "Cartman" wrote:

Just an update to the data connection issue for me. I turned off my phone last night. After turning it on this morning by plugging it into a power source I no longer have data.

I am in an AT&T LTE area. Have a feeling that 4G would work fine. Dont know if I should replace my device at this point but not having reliable data is a big issue for me as it affects the ability to due my job.

User "kltye" suggests the issue is SIM related, writing:

I had my data go out twice at exactly the same time each day (hard reset fixed it the first time; didn't want to do that again today). I talked to a rep in the store and they were immediately aware of the problem - it's the SIM card. They apparently received a new batch of SIMs over the weekend to fix the problem. They provisioned me with a new SIM, but it took almost a half hour for it to start working again.

An interesting trick I learnt from them is to push the volume up, power, and camera button while the phone is on, and hold it until it reboots. Apparently it "resets the network", but I'm going to take it with a grain of salt for now. (As an interesting note, I did that one last time after my new SIM was provisioned and then data worked after that, but I chalk that up to coincidence, because they did that a million times at the store)

The rep had a 900 with working data; he swapped out his SIM and mine and my phone came to life immediately. Goes to show it's the SIM.

III. Nokia Offers Quick Fix, $100 Cash to Buyers

After a flood of criticism, Nokia was relatively quick to respond. Late Tuesday, the Finnish phonemaker owned up to its mistake and said there was an issue with the phone's software -- specifically a memory management issue -- and not an underlying issue with the OS or network.

While Nokia won't drop its over-the-air fix until next Monday, Nokia's U.S. chief Chris Weber toldAll ThingsDigital that the in-store stock might already be fixed. He comments, "We’re already manufacturing devices with the new software. Those are being shipped to AT&T stores."

He adds sheepishly, "Obviously you don’t want these things to happen."

While a "current investigation" is pending at Nokia as to how such a serious issue could slip through the cracks of the testing process, Nokia is responding in a big way for customers. Any customer who buys, or has bought the device before April 21, gets a $100 USD credit.

Nokia is giving customers $100 compensation for the bug. [Image Source: U.S. Treasury]

AT&T was already offering a $100 promotional credit for new customers, taking the phone's $99 sticker down to "free". It is unclear whether customers will be able to apply the second credit towards their monthly bill, but Nokia claims it applies to all customers, so presumably savvy new customers who ordered online will be getting a free phone and $100.

Ironically, Nokia parodied this statement in its advertisements, only to fall victim to similar issues itself. To Nokia's credit, Apple only offered customers a pseudo-fix in the form of insulating free cases -- Nokia is offering a fix and $100.

This is not the first Nokia Lumia product to be marred by software bugs, however. Early Lumia 700 and 800 purchasers in Europe reported the phones to be suffering from poor battery life, a problem Nokia tracked down to a software bug.

Hopefully Nokia has learned from these incidents, but customers have at least learned that the company -- while flawed -- does try to take care of them when things go wrong.

It'd be more interesting to hear Jason's opinion about his new Lumia 900. Jason, care to post a nanoreview here or something?

I purchased HTC Titan for $270 a few days ago to replace my BB Torch 9850 'cause I always wanted big screen and was wary of crapdroid sluggishness, lack of firmware updates and malware. So far so good, Mango works pretty well for me, everything is super fast and slick (at least perceptionally, not in geeky benchmarks of course), setup took 3 minutes just to enter a few of my account infos, for corporate, for home, a few social networks and such, then the phone synced all by itself, I got all ma mail, chats, status updates etc... and the hardware is top notch quality wise. Can't say it's worse quality than iPhone, it's on par, same tight monolithic brick as iPhone, and it's probably slightly better than plasticky Samsung devices. I like all matte black metal, it's ma style :D For a phone of such quality and without a contract $270 is a steal, looks like I got lucky that day hehe :)

Jason, your turn.

P.S. did you guys notice Lumia 900 is #1 hot seller on Amazon and it's reviews are 90% five stars? What's up with that? Is it really THAT good or is it some marketing ploy from MS?

Especially since there's pretty much nothing special or unique about this phone--basically the same hardware stats as all WP7's that have been around for months! Just a bigger 800. A very stagnant platform.

And did I mention how ugly a phone with sharp corners and perfect rectangular shape is? But that's just personal opinion.. I simply can't believe the ergonomics are anything other than horrible.

The "Amazon verified purchasr" sign is kinda important, meaning the reviewer got the product from Amazon. People who have it and got it elsewhere can review it on Amazon, but there's a degree of absolute validity to the opinions only given by those who have that "Amazon verified purchase".

Whaaa? Who's shining? Mango has really tiny market share compared to BB so I actually went DOWNWARDS if you think about it. I went from somewhat popular smartphone to totally UNpopular one, what the eff is the light you're talking about? The light coming from a deep hole? Maybe.

I just purchased what I liked, as usual. A year ago I liked Torch 9850 the best from all the phones I tried, now it's Titan. iPhone is always second on my list because of tiny screen and stupid glass on the back (I want black matte metal on back, always, like on Torch and on Titan :), and crapdroid is distant third. BB is out of the question now until they release BB10, then we'll see where in this list they land, definitely above crapdroid, judging by my experience with Playbook, but whether they beat iPhone with a nice large screen is kinda open question.

I mean you dumped your Blackberry in favor of a modern phone. That isnt a step downwards by any means. I havent really used WP7 , but everyone I know and read online that has, swears its really good stuff. Sounds like you agree, so congrats on your nice new phone.

Ya it's good, screen is better and email is top notch just like on Torch but I miss my trackpad and my microSD slot, so no, Mango is not universally better compared to BB, RIM still has some nice aces up their sleeve

I dunno... Most phones have microSD, not sure why they left it off the Titan. As for the trackpad, it's really not useful, its was designed for an older non-multitouch system. Once you get used to it, you'll never miss it, believe me.

quote: Most phones have microSD, not sure why they left it off the Titan

Ah, you're just not aware that WP7 does not support user changeable microSD at all. Read some docs will ya?

I tried to use touch screen to control my text cursor but trackpad is still better for that, hands down. Combination of trackpad for precise cursor control and touch for rough control is the optimum that only BB has.

I know this is purely anecdotal, but I've had mine since friday and have had no issues. Clearly Nokia wouldn't have reacted if there wasn't a widespread problem but I wonder why it effects some phones and not others.

AT&T were the ones that actually screwed me in a way, I asked to switch my number from sprint, and they told sprint to kill it before I got my new phone. So I was phone-less for 24 hours. But on the other hand it came pre-activated. I didn't have to touch the simcard or do anything, just turn it on.

And I'm very impressed with this thing. UI is very slick, polished, and hasn't crashed no matter what I've tried to do. Huge improvement over my Evo 4G. The resolution of the screen is no better, but the deep blacks of the amoled make it look much more vibrant then lcd. The battery life seems to be almost exactly a day with a decent amount of use on 4G. And I really like the device, it feels comfortable in my hand, not overly heavy, and no sharp edges. The cyan color is also pretty cool, makes it stand out from the sea of black phones out there.